The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has asked the states to amend or formulate rules of the Act in consonance with the spirit of the central Act. “Right from the beginning, we have been telling all the states not to dilute the Act.

In a report tabled in Parliament earlier this month, the committee on subordinate legislation, headed by BJP MP Dilipkumar Mansukhlal Gandhi, has asked the state governments to take all possible remedial measures to ensure that ongoing projects are brought under the ambit of the Act so as to extend the stipulated benefits of the RERA to home buyers.

The committee has directed the ministry to ask the state governments to amend or formulate the rules under RERA in such a way that there is no ambiguity regarding the definition of “ongoing projects.”

Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have decided to keep outside the purview of the RERA projects that have been issued, or applied for, occupancy certificates. This is a significant difference from the central RERA notified on May 1 this year that had completion certificates as the benchmark for exemption.